florecita.

I'm alive! Even though it's been forever, I figured I had to update before the year changes and I make a mockery of blogging. I just got back a few days ago from my first trip to the States, which was AMAZING. Mom and I decided that I would come home for Christmas a few weeks before Thanksgiving, and because I wasn't planning on it, she came up with the marvelous idea of not telling anyone. Easily, the hardest secret I've ever had to keep...well, I could only kind of keep it ;)

I did my best! But we managed to scare the pants off just about everyone. I can easily say that December 23 this year was the best birthday ever. It was so amazing to see everyone, friends and family, and have it be a surprise. I was in Houston for 3 full days, and managed to hit all the high points. I'm so excited to go back (in a week!) to be a bridesmaid in one of my oldest friend's weddings...I'll really see everyone then. When I got back to Poaquil after my shockingly short trip, everyone I work with was really excited to hear about how my trip to the States went, and especially, about how I managed to surprise my dad! Also, I got to meet the two sweet new additions to the fam, the lovelys Libby Mae and Mia Jane. So darling!

Work is slow right now, but I've been hearing since we got here that it's next to impossible to get anything done during December. School starts up again in early January, as well as regularly meeting groups. Right now I'm not totally bored because I've got a fair amount of odds and ends to take care of with the scholarship fund, Friends of Poaquil. The kids made precious thank you/Merry Christmas cards for donors in the States, and we're trying to get those out. I'm heading to Antigua tomorrow to celebrate New Year's Eve with a bunch of friends, so I'm really looking forward to that.

Once 2010 rolls around, I'll be back!

Mere

flor de utatlan.

I said that I wouldn't have anything cultural to write about after a week in Antigua, but whatever. I got home this morning in time to go to a birthday lunch for a family here in Poaquil I've become acquainted with through my sitemate. I get off the bus, carrying a ridiculous amount of crap, and my neighbor rides by on his bike. He's a mechanic, so he's always in the street when I walk to the Centro working on the camionetas, completely covered in grease. A side note on the mechanics in this country - I swear they could fix something with a bit of chewing gum and a paperclip. Reject cars and buses from the States end up down here, and there is obviously hardly any access to car parts, especially for the make and model you would be looking for. I consider them to be rather creative and very handy. Impressive stuff. Anyways, this mechanic ALWAYS has a huge smile and some kind words for me, which I realized today that I had been taking for granted. You don't talk to anyone on the streets in Antigua, too many people are tourists and the others think that you are a tourist. In the small towns we live in, you say something to just about everyone that you pass.

I turn onto my street and run into the landlady of my house, who seems very excited to see me. We exchange words, but very few. More or less, she only understands greetings in Spanish, and I only understand greetings and no more in Kaqchikel, so communication between the two of us is rather limited. She too always has a huge smile for me...and she has a fantastically beautiful smile, most likely because she has dentures. After seeing Lorenza (my landlady), I run into her daughter. And then 2 kids of a family in town I've gotten to know, heading out to the campo in their brother's pickup. And then one of the nurses that works for the Centro. Etc, etc. I guess that I didn't realize how much I've started to feel at home here until I left for longer than one or two nights. Time passes slower, people are friendlier, and I didn't realize how much I enjoy the tranquilo lifestyle here until I left it. The fact that I'm finding Antigua a little fast-paced speaks volumes to how out of it I'm going to feel when I finally go back to visit the States.

Anyways, those are just my musings of the day. Could be because I've killed an entire bottle of Robitussin in about 24 hours. Yay for the seasons changing!

aracely.

Ugh, I was doing such a good job of keeping up with this blog before I got to site. In a way, I'm much busier than I was, but it's just different. Instead of being in Spanish class all day like we were in training, my schedule is now pretty random. In the last update, I wanted to talk about Friends of Poaquil, but it was so long already. So here it is now.

Friends of Poaquil is a scholarship fund here in San Jose Poaquil that a Peace Corps volunteer started about 10 or so years ago. PCVs in Poaquil have been in charge of it, and it was handed over to me when I moved here. Basically, kids from Poaquil and the aldeas are eligible to "apply." All of the kids are either basico students (like high school) or in their career school. It's not like the States where after high school you go to college, and then to nursing school, etc. Here, after basico, you apply for a career school, whether it be teaching, nursing, accounting or what have you. This year, we have 2 recipients graduating from basico and are remaining with F0fP for next year - one is going to accounting school, the other to study elementary education. There are 2 others graduating, but from their career schools - one from elementary education and the other from nursing. They have both been with the program since their basico education. Basically, the kids are fabulous; they have to maintain their grades, obviously, but they also have some community service type work that they do through the Puesto de Salud in one of the aldeas.

I went to one of the basico graduations last Friday, for Rogelia who is going to study accounting. This coming Saturday I'm going to the career school graduation for Anabeiba, who is going to be an elementary education teacher. I feel like being part of Friends of Poaquil has given me a wonderful and immediate "in" to the community here. There is a woman here from Saquitacaj, one of the aldeas of Poaquil, that is the Guatemalan side in charge of the program. Her name is Petrona, and she is one of the more impressive Guatemalans I've met in this country. I immensely admire her. We had a meeting a few weeks ago with the recipients and some of their parents, and when it was my turn to make a little speech, I definitely discovered that many colloquialisms from English don't translate to Spanish. I said that I have some very big shoes to fill, and the whole group of people just looked at me like I was crazy. So I had to stumble to explain that I meant the volunteers before had done such a great job that I have a lot to live up to. It was somewhat embarrassing, but unfortunately, none of them found it as funny as I did.

We spent Halloween in Guatemala City, which was SO much fun and absolutely nothing like the Guatemala I've been living in for the past 6 months. We had sushi for dinner, coffee at the mall (where I felt ridiculously under dressed and frumpy) and went to a huge party that easily could have been in the States, just that everyone spoke Spanish and English. Guatemala City is absolutely bizarre, but we had an awesome time. On Sunday morning, I stopped in Sumpango, a town about 30 minutes outside of Guate with my friend Ame. November 1 is obviously All Saints Day, and the tradition here is to fly kites as sort of an homage to ancestors. In Sumpango and another town nearby, they make these GIANT kites for a contest, and the ones under 10 meters are flown. The hugest ones are just decorations. The coolest part of the festival was all the ordinary people there flying their own small homemade kites. They were everywhere, mostly kids, but a fair amount of adults too. It was a beautiful day, and we just laid in the sun, on the grass, watching hundreds of people fly kites. Very surreal.

I've been fighting with my wireless internet ever since I bought it for this month last week. Any of you who don't like calling service lines or whatever, try it in a foreign language. I'm sure I hardly make any sense at all to the people, but it's up and running again, obviously, as I wouldn't be able to write this otherwise.

So Dad finally made it down here about a week and a half ago, and we had a wonderful time. We stopped by the lake, which is one of my favorite places in the country, and spent Sunday night in Antigua. I think my favorite part was having him come to Poaquil briefly on Sunday, which is market day, so it was nuts. I made him try atol de elote, sort of a mushy drink made from corn, which is incredibly popular here. He liked it, but not enough to have more than a taste!

Everyone from my training group is heading to Antigua this weekend because we're spending ALL of next week at the office, for Spanish class and other info sessions, that kind of jazz. Should be awesome to be all together again after about 4 months. I'm sure after that week, I'll have pretty much nothing cultural to write about; it will be a week of hanging out with Americans.

Ok, that's all I've got for now. You guys need to start looking into flights to come down here, I promise it's super cheap other than the flight! I LIVE on less than $350 a month, so spending some time is not going to hit your wallet too hard. The rainy season is pretty much over, and it's a bit cooler, and absolutely even more gorgeous, if that's even possible.

Mere

tacana.

Extremely formal greetings and salutations to all who read this. We've gotten in the habit of literally translating some things from Spanish to English, which can come out very formal and often rather hilarious. The exact translation doesn't usually equal the sentido/meaning, so it's entertaining. My personal favorite is when, for example, the doctor at my Centro greets my boss as Inginiero Basilio, he is literally saying masculine college graduate of engineering Basilio. Technically, I am Licenciada Meredith, so female college graduate of the liberal arts Meredith. Also, my copy of The Bodyguard is called El Guardaespaldas, literally, guard of the back. I guess we've been here long enough that random it no longer takes much to entertain us.

Anyways, Basilio finally made it to my town last Thursday to visit, which went exceptionally well...much better than I had expected. First off, he was extremely complimentary of my Spanish, which is always nice. He asked what I'd been doing, like studying or listening to the radio or reading the newspaper. I informed him that I watch the Spanish telenovelas (soap operas) a few times a week and listen to a lot of music in Spanish. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. We came up with a little game plan that we discussed with the doctor at the Centro. All Peace Corps volunteers have what is called a counterpart - it is someone who works for the host country agency that the volunteer is placed with (in my case, the Centro de Salud of my town). My counterpart, Cruz, is a TSR (tecnico en salud rural), which basically just means he does some auxiliary work in 2 tiny towns that are covered by the Centro. He came back from his 6 weeks (!) of vacation last week, so I now feel less at odds than I had been.

I'm starting this week in 3 of these caserios (the tiny towns) - Chuatacaj I, Chuatacaj II, and Pacul. Ideally, I'll spend one day a week in each one, one day at the Centro, then one day in the aldea (slightly larger tiny town) Paneya where I'm teaching English at the school. The volunteer I replaced worked in Paneya, as well as two other aldeas, so it would be nice to follow up on her work in those as well. I haven't spent as much time in the aldeas and caserios because the doctor at my Centro makes me feel like I'm not working if I'm not at the Centro. Which is frustrating, because my work isn't at the Centro, it's in the aldeas and caserios. I'm more than happy to help out when they need it, but he has a full staff of nurses, etc, to handle that stuff. It's hard to politely explain that I'm working with the Centro, not for the Centro. Whenever I'm not there, apparently he's asking everyone where I am. Just kind of a frustrating conflict because I don't want to upset him, but I'm also not going to placate him by sitting in the Centro every day with very little to do. Basilio told him I was only going to be at the Centro once a week or so, but still. We'll see how it pans out.

I spent one night last week in Caserio Centro, where my sitemate Kate lives. I hadn't been there yet, and it's one of the smaller communities in our municipality, so it was interesting to visit. She's an agriculture/food security volunteer, so has a lot of interesting projects and groups going on. Her town is very close to one of the larger aldeas, so transportation isn't as much of an issue as it can be for other places (like the ones I'm working in...). Anyways, we left on the last bus in the afternoon. We're on the bus, waiting to leave, and happen to notice that the man across the aisle from us is drunk. Very, very drunk. Here, the term for a drunk is bolo/bola. Those are the ones you see passed out in the street, often having just wet their pants. It's not like cops are going to come and take these guys to the drunk tank, the way they would in the States. The bolo on the bus wasn't causing much harm, just kind of muttering gibberish and being annoying. The ayudante and then the owner of the bus both came by separately to tell him to sit down and shut up, but he didn't heed their commands. We finally pull out of town, and he stands up and is (slurredly, if that's even a word) yelling, "f-ck you" at me and Kate.Of course it is at us, we're the only gringos, and of course that's the only English he knows. We're not even halfway down the first hill when the bus stops, and the driver and the ayudante come to forcibly remove him from his seat. This guy did NOT want to bajar the camioneta, let me tell you. He was hanging on to rails and other people with hands and feet, so the ayudante and driver got rather violent, hitting his arms and legs, and kicking him in the torso to get him to let go. Eventually, they overpowered him and dumped him out the back door of the bus (old school US school bus), flailing in the middle of the dirt road in the rain. That was definitely some serious gossip for the whole municipality for the next few days. People would ask me, "Marta, did you hear about the bolo they kicked off the bus?" and I'd tell them I was actually there. It's not very common for someone to be kicked off the bus...I've been on buses with bolos my fair share of times, and this was the first time I've seen them follow through. Long story short, I give mad props (other than the extreme physical force) to the ayudante and the driver for setting an example and following through on their word. Doesn't happen much here.

We stayed on Lake Atitlan two weekends ago for Saturday night in a town there called Santa Cruz La Laguna. I loved it because it's not particularly touristy. There's a hostel there that's really popular with Peace Corps volunteers and backpackers/travelers that we stayed at. Rather inexpensive, beautiful views, great food, eclectic mix of people. You can't get there by bus, so you take a bus or drive to Panajachel and then take a boat to Santa Cruz. When Dad comes in a few weeks, I'm planning on taking him to a town next to Santa Cruz, that you also can only get to by boat or foot. So excited to have him here!

Cross your fingers that my pony situation works out. I may have found a place to keep it, but I don't know how it'll pan out. And I have to find/buy the actual pony. Still a long shot, but it would make my life SO much easier, and safer, if I had one. Since I'm working in the aldeas at least 4 days a week, I'm going to go broke paying for taxis or tuktuks since it's not really safe to walk there. In other animal related news, my kitten Gouda is settling in quite nicely. He's becoming more independent by the day, and seems to have made friends with the hideously ugly and scrawny 2 black kittens from next door.

I finally finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, so I guess that's partly the reason I'm so pumped for Dad to come...he's bringing the next one. In the meantime, I'm pacifying myself with Jon Stewart's old book from like 10 years ago. I wanted to mention something in this post about Friends of Poaquil, the scholarship fund I'm now in charge of, but this is so long already I'll save it for next time. Hope all is hunky-dory at home!

Chon chik,

Meredith

xelaju.

Saludos!

I feel like I don't know what to say on this anymore, which is perhaps why I haven't written anything in far too long. I've been trying to think of some musings to write about, but I guess my creativity is rather sporadic. I love that on my last post I said that I had some semblance of a schedule...definitely spoke too soon. I am teaching English at the school in Paneya, but have yet to do so on a Monday. Kaqchikel class with the Centro is pretty much over, so I need to find a new teacher. And the exercise class has yet to materialize, which is not the least bit surprising.

On the work front, things are good. Sort of busy, but sort of not busy at all. I guess I can choose how busy I want to be. I've been going out with our extended coverage nurses at least once a week or so, which is really interesting. They visit all the different communities that don't have a Puesto de Salud or aren't covered by the Centro once a month. There's a lot of routine vaccinations and such, but we also do some home visits to just-born infants and anyone who can't make it to our makeshift clinic.

I've been doing a bit of traveling on the weekends, probably more than I should be, budget-wise. I've been to Xela quite a bit, but we've also spent time in the towns outside of Xela where some of my friends live. It's awesome to see other volunteers' towns and homes. Last weekend we spent Friday night in Xela celebrating Marc's birthday (he's the one who went to College of Charleston also), and Saturday morning randomly decided to go to Panajachel for the rest of the weekend. Pana is on Lake Atitlan, which is absolutely to die for. I'm actually heading to the lake again tomorrow, but to a different town this time...Pana is ridiculously touristy, so it's much nicer to be off the beaten path.

Dad is coming down to visit for a weekend in October, which I'm rather enthused about! It'll be so good to see him and show him around. Things that don't even register with me anymore are going to come up. Por ejemplo, you see women everywhere walking around with a comb stuck in their hair. They'll brush out their hair, put it up in some fashion, and then stick the comb in somewhere for safekeeping. Somewhat odd.

Oooohhh, last week we celebrated Guatemala's independence from Spain...15 de septiembre. For about a week or so before, groups of kids and teachers from the local schools and clubs participate in what's called an "en torche." Basically, they run from one aldea to the town, and perhaps back, carrying torches...like the Olympic torch run. It was through this that I discovered Guatemalans are P-A-L-E. It was hilarious to see a few people running in their traje, but many more were in their athletic attire with some amazing tan lines. On the 15th, every town has a huge parade with dancers, marching bands, etc. There were groups from every school in my town, and also from pretty much every aldea. It's hilarious to see 6 year old kids in a marching band with drums...also kind of weird. I put a ton of pictures from the en torche and the parade on Facebook, so feel free to mosey on over there for a look.

I picked up my kitten last week, against my mother's better judgement. My sitemate's cat randomly had kittens right before I got here (fortunately just 2), so I took one of them for her. He's a little orange and white booger that she named Gouda. Clearly, she is missing cheese, as his sister is named Truffle. I'm planning on handing him over to another volunteer when I leave...but we've got about two years first.

The DVD situation in this country is fantastic. Of course they're all bootleg, but you can get discs with up to four movies on them...and it still only costs Q10 (about $1.25 US or so). Of course, they're not always great quality, but you can usually get the negocio to try them out for you. My copy of Twilight is flawless, I must say. As is my copy of The Dark Knight. Unfortunately, High School Musical turned out to be a wash - I got a disc with all three movies on it, and only HSM2 is in English. 1 and 3 are just dubbed over in Spanish. In general, they've usually got a pretty good, if random, selection.

I wish I had more interesting things to report on, such as I have to walk 2 miles uphill to work each way, but alas, no. It's just different here. All of you reading this, please ask your higher power to please let me have a hot shower more than once every few weeks. Bucket bathing is getting really old. It's worth the $6 hostel room just to get that hot shower on the weekends!

Nos vemos.

Meredith

lorenita

xqaq'ij.

That would be "good afternoon" in Kaqchikel. Only a smidge different from English. Anyways, happy Monday! As much as I'm loving having my computer (and wireless...), it might not be the best thing. It makes all of you at home and the States seem that much closer, but still just far away. I guess being able to be on gchat and such makes me nostalgic or something. As of last week, we're at 4 months being in Guatemala...I swear the first few days we were in this country seemed longer than the past 4 months in total. I've kind of got more or less the idea of a "schedule," so we'll see how this works out. As of now, every week I'll supposedly be doing the following:

-Monday: Work at the school in Paneya, one of our aldeas; radio show in the afternoon.

-Tuesday: Kaqchikel class.

-Wednesday: Consejeria a los puerperos, aka chatting with moms who have babies less than 6 months old about family planning, breast feeding, and vaccinations. Because I know SO much about that.

-Thursday: Teach English class to my Centro de Salud.

-Friday: Waiting room charla.

Oh, and I was informed today that our Centro is starting an exercise class every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoon...and I'm teaching it. I think it's hilarious that I was anonymously and unamimously elected to teach this thing when I didn't even know about it. Considering I DOUBT anyone that works in my Centro actually exercises at this point, it should be interesting. Who wants to be a fly on the wall?

Last week, a group called the Payaso Proyecto came to visit us here in Poaquil. Payasos are clowns. I am utterly terrified, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, of clowns. Basically, after witnessing their schpiel twice, I can attest that it is more of an acting troop about HIV/AIDS education and awareness. Which is lovely concept. We started out in Paneya, one of the aldeas, at the school there. The kids were split into boys and girls (these kids were about 13/14), and we girls worked with the muchachas and the boys worked with the patojos. I can't begin to tell you how hilarious it is to see tweens in traje awkwardly holding a condom with a scarlet face. Don't worry, there's pictures. After that session, we gathered for the "spectacula" or something like that. This is where the clowns came into play...fortunately only 2 of the 7 were dressed as clowns. I handled it. Then commenced the skit, complete with song and dance, about HIV/AIDS education and prevention. These kids in the acting troop (essentially kids, they were about 19-24, agewise), had some serious chops. In the afternoon we did the same thing at one of the colegios (private schools) in what I refer to as "downtown" Poaquil. I'd say the Payaso Proyecto was remarkably well recieved by the kids at both schools.

We had the monthly round of midwife education (capacitacion de comadronas) at Ixin Ac'uala' (local NGO that works extremely closely with the Ministerio de Salud) which was awesome. Apparently the midwives decided I no longer am going to curse them with my blue cat eyes or something. Hardly any of them speak Spanish, just Kaqchikel, and almost all of them live out in the aldeas. They went from completely ignoring me to essentially arguing over whose turn it was to talk at me in Kaqchikel and patting on me and hugging me. They were precious.

Ooooooh! I almost forgot that I experienced my first Guatemalan bachelorette party, or "despedida a soltera." One of the nurses that works in my Centro is getting married this coming weekend. It was...different. Rather tame, fortunately, because it included everyone that works in the Centro, including the doctor. I do believe my favorite activity included having a man (in this case, the doctor) lie down on the floor. Blindfold the bride-to-be and then substitute the man on the ground for some sort of large inanimate object. Have the bachelorette walk wide-legged (remember all the women wear traje...) over what she thinks is the man lying on the ground, with everyone a-hootin' and a-hollerin'. She then finishes, whips off the blindfold, and, lo and behold!, discovers she didn't actually flash her Britney at some poor unassuming man. There's photos, no worries. I'm afraid they don't really do the hilarity of the whole situation justice, but they'll do.

I visited a house last week that was literally less than a 5 minute walk from mine to just sort of do a diagnostic survey. It was pretty surprising and eye-opening, but I don't want to go into details; I feel like it might sort of degrade this wonderfully kind family that is living in such poverty. I had sort of assumed that most people living in the "urban," I use that term loosely, area of Poaquil at least had cement or tile floors and letrines. Apparently not. Rather sobering, but there really wasn't any reason to pity them - all of their children were still living, and they are just living their lives.

Anyways, I'm going to wrap this up by leaving yall with my new mailing address. I went to Tecpan (bigger town about 30 minutes away) last week and opened up a PO Box there. Now, I'm expecting it to be utilized because I dropped a whole Q185 on that, not to mention my busfare there and back.

PCV Meredith Clote

Apartado Postal #1

Tecpan, Guatemala

Chimaltenango 04006

Guatemala

Centro America

I'll leave you with a Kaqchikel phrase I finally managed to remember today, which essentially just means "see you later": yojch'on yan chik, matyox.

Mere

trans-kaqchikel

Buenas noches! As of tomorrow, I will have been here in Poaquil for one month. And it has gone by so fast. I've been at the Centro de Salud everyday, some days just giving a charla in the morning to the waiting room, other days going out to the aldeas, and others going to schools. We spent 2 days doing topographical surveying for potable water lines in one of the aldeas, Nueva Esperanza. That was awesome because we worked with my companero Ryan that lives in a town 12 km away. He was quite helpful, whilst I spent my time whittling him his own Harry Potter wand with my machete.

I've been out of my town the last two weekends, one in Xela and the other in Antigua. Xela was lovely - stayed in San Franscisco El Alto, Totonicopan, with my lovely pal Anna. There's a ton of volunteers who live within an hour or so of Xela, so it was a hoot to see all of them. Antigua was exactly as we left it - tourist central. On the way back from Antigua, I fell off the camioneta in Chimaltenango when I was changing buses and busted the crap out of my elbow. As in gushing blood and it's still killing me a week later.

I went to Chimal this morning to get out of dodge and see if I could buy wireless internet there or if I'd have to make the trek to Guate. Long story short, I'm sitting in my bed with my computer right now. Yay. Days just seem to come and go here and there's not much stress. Which is awesome. I was discussing with my sitemate earlier today about how the people here don't really seem to have any self-consciousness, which is admirable. I'm sure a lot of it is that it's a much less materialistic place, mostly because it has to be! The people here are really just, in the words of one Jacqui Stewart, "just trying to live." I wish I had coined that, but it's really the best way to describe things here.

I think the reason I haven't been too quick on the blog updates is that things are all starting to seem normal. What was surprising and blog-worthy a month ago now is commonplace, so I'm finding less things worth mentioning. And day-to-day work would be unbelievably dull to recount. I'm starting to find a groove here, really without even trying to. Next up: time to find my pony.